Beware the Sand Striker

Radiolab

WNYC Studios

Science, Natural Sciences, History, Society & Culture, Documentary

4.6 • 43.5K Ratings

🗓️ 16 June 2023

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Shipworms. Hairy Chested Yeti Crabs. Parasitic Barnacles in the cloaca of Greenland Sharks. These are the types of creatures Sabrina Imbler, a columnist at Defector, likes to write about. The stranger, the better.

In this episode, Imbler discusses how they balance maintaining scientific rigor while also drawing inspiration and metaphor from the animal world. Then they read a stirring essay from their new book, How Far the Light Reaches: A Life in Ten Sea Creatures . It’s about the sand striker, one of the ocean’s most gruesome predators, and the various prey that surround it. In learning about the relationships between predator and prey lurking in the murky bottom, Imbler ends up unearthing new insights about predation in human society. The essay deals with sexual assault so listen with care.

EPISODE CREDITS

Reported by - Lulu Miller

Produced by - Sindhu Gnanasambandan

Original music and sound design contributed by - Alex Overington

with mixing help from - Jeremy Bloom and Arianne Wack

Fact-checking by - Natalie Middleton

and Edited by - Alex Neason and Pat Walters

EPISODE CITATIONS

Articles:“Creaturefector” (https://zpr.io/3myWi4grgkGB) by Sabrina Imbler

Books: How Far the Light Reaches: A Life in Ten Sea Creatures (https://zpr.io/agkRj7xyPG9T) by Sabrina Imbler Dyke (geology) (https://zpr.io/7kAtAKjdBqPa) by Sabrina Imbler

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Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation Initiative, and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Wait, you're listening to radio lab from WNYC.
0:18.6	Give me a rundown of some of the creatures you've written about.
0:22.8	The Hary Chested Yeti Crab.
0:26.2	Today I talk to a researcher who studies Greenland Sharks,
0:31.6	but I was more interested in the parasitic barnacle inside the cloaca of a female part.
0:39.9	Yes, yes, it's multi-purpose whole.
0:43.3	What makes you think of all the creatures in the world?
0:47.8	The one I'll talk about this, what makes you go to the barnacle in the cloaca to even focus on?
0:54.1	I think I'm just fascinated by the things that are strange just from my own experience.
1:03.0	This is Radio Lab, I'm Lulu Miller and I'm here with writer Sabrina Impler.
1:07.2	I'm a staff writer for Defector, which is a worker owned sports and culture site,
1:13.5	but I write about creatures on Defector. I have my own little column.
1:18.8	So I'm a huge fan of Sabrina's. I read their book a few months back.
1:23.2	It's called How Far the Light Reaches, a Life Intensey Creatures,
1:28.2	and they do this thing that I love to do, but sometimes worry about doing,
1:33.6	which is that they look to nature, they look to animals to both see the animals,
1:37.8	but also to kind of draw some human lessons.
1:41.7	And I know that in certain ways, that is a cardinal sin of science reporting,
1:48.8	like thou shalt not project.
1:51.5	But they do it in this way that somehow stays scientifically rigorous and clear,
1:57.9	and I just wanted to share their magic, their work with more people.
2:02.8	So I called them in to read an essay that absolutely floored me,
	...

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